Our team comprises disputes, investigations, enforcement and technical specialists from our Litigation, Dispute Resolution and Investigations, Financial Regulation, Asset Management and Investment Funds, Insurance and Reinsurance and Legal Tech groups. We work together seamlessly and in a fully integrated manner.

Using our deep knowledge and experience of the regulatory environment and relevant Irish and EU statutory frameworks, we advise and support our clients on investigations and enforcement actions to successfully bring them to a conclusion and to manage the related legal, commercial and reputational risks. We also provide risk management advice and support on issues that could give rise to regulatory investigations.

To enable clients to mitigate and manage the processes and risks involved, we provide strategic guidance and advice to clients in advance of and throughout the investigation and/or the enforcement journey.  In this context we advise our clients on all aspects of regulatory, compliance, and enforcement issues, including associated large-scale document and information governance management, analytics, and review exercises.

We also have extensive experience in cross-border regulatory investigations and enforcement actions and our international network of peer firms allows us to support clients involved in cross-border regulatory investigations involving regulators and jurisdictions around the world.

We have had a role in many of the most significant or high-profile enforcement actions taken by the Central Bank of Ireland in recent years. Our clients include major Irish and international credit institutions, investment firms, asset/fund managers, fund administrators, insurance companies, payment institutions and other types of regulated financial institutions.

We have extensive experience of dealing with investigations and enforcement actions by regulators including the Central Bank of Ireland, the European Central Bank and the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO), as well as prosecuting and defending related challenges, statutory appeals and statutory inquiries.

Relevant Experience

• Providing ongoing strategic advice to financial institutions on emerging industry issues and risks that could lead to investigations or enforcement actions
• Advising a number of financial institutions on an industry-wide investigation by the Central Bank of Ireland into tracker interest rate/mortgage related issues
• Advising on recent enforcement actions involving, among other things, breaches of AML/CTF requirements, regulatory capital requirements, outsourcing requirements and regulatory reporting requirements
• Advising on enforcement actions initiated by the European Central Bank
• Advising individuals who are the subject of investigations, including under the Central Bank’s fitness and probity regime
• Representing and preparing individuals (including directors, senior executives and senior management) attending interviews conducted by the Central Bank of Ireland and European Central Bank in a variety of scenarios including enforcement actions and investigations and fitness and probity interviews and investigations
• Advising the Central Bank of Ireland (Regulatory Decisions Unit) on the design and establishment of the first Statutory Inquiry convened under the Administrative Sanctions Procedure arising from an investigation into Irish Nationwide Building Society